Predicting account holder travel without transaction data

ABSTRACT

A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium configured to anticipate travel by payment account holders without using payment transaction data.

RELATED APPLICATION

The present application is a continuation of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 14/503,815, filed Oct. 1, 2014, and issued as U.S. Pat. No.9,367,871.

BACKGROUND

Field of the Disclosure

Aspects of the disclosure relate in general to financial services.Aspects include a method and a decision making platform to identifytravel by payment account holders, and more particularly, to reducefraudulent transactions involving payment cards without utilizingaccount holder transaction data.

Description of the Related Art

A payment card is a card that can be used by an account holder andaccepted by a merchant to make a payment for a purchase or in payment ofsome other obligation. Payment cards include credit cards, debit cards,charge cards, and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards. Payment cardsprovide the clients of a financial institution (“account holders”) withthe ability to pay for goods and services without the inconvenience ofusing cash.

The payment industry suffers from problems stemming from cross-bordertravel by account holders. One problem is that fraud rates incross-border transactions (in which the account holder is from adifferent country than a merchant) are much higher than thoseexperienced on domestic transactions. These high fraud rates make itrisky for the card issuing financial institution (“issuers”) to approvecross-border transactions. As a result, issuers often attempt tomitigate the risk by declining cross-border transactions at higher ratesthan domestic transactions. While these higher decline rates mayminimize the issuing bank's fraud exposure, it inconveniences theaccount holder, deprives the merchant of a sale, and deprives the issuerof incremental revenue on the purchase.

Generally, at least one payment card network (“payment network”)currently provides fraud scoring for electronic payment transactions.Fraud scoring refers to an indication, or likelihood, that a paymenttransaction is fraudulent. In one fraud scoring system, the payment cardnetwork provides a number back to the payment card issuer between zeroand 1,000, which translates into zero and 100 percent, in tenths ofpercentage points. To provide fraud scoring capability, various vendorsor payment card networks provide and market various different fraudscoring products. A payment card network generally selects one of thevendor products to provide its customers (the card issuers) with one offraud scoring and credit risk scoring that is accessible, for example,on a payment card network.

SUMMARY

Embodiments include a system, device, method and computer-readablemedium to anticipate travel by payment account holders without usingpayment transaction data.

In one embodiment, a system includes a network interface and aprocessor. The network interface is configured to receive cookie data.The cookie data includes a plurality of cookies. Each cookie contains:an Internet Protocol address associated with a browsing computer and aweb site address. The processor is configured to identify atravel-related cookie from the plurality of cookies. When the web siteaddress of the travel-related cookie is associated with a travel website, the processor is further configured to identify a customer accountassociated with the travel-related cookie by comparing the InternetProtocol address of the browsing computer with a database of knowncustomer Internet Protocol addresses. The database is stored on anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The customer accountcontains contact information of the customer. The network interface isfurther configured to use the contact information to send the customer atravel-related notification.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a system to identify travel bypayment account holders without utilizing account holder transactiondata.

FIG. 2 is an expanded block diagram of an exemplary embodiment of aserver architecture of a payment processor embodiment configured toidentify travel by payment account holders without utilizing accountholder transaction data.

FIG. 3 illustrates a non-real time clearing process to identify travelby payment account holders without utilizing account holder transactiondata.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

One aspect of the disclosure includes the realization that anticipatedaccount holder travel data may be incorporated as a factor to vendorfraud scoring products in the authorization of cross-bordertransactions. In another aspect, knowledge of anticipated account holdertravel may facilitate useful travel-related offers to account holders.Further, a system and method may anticipate account holder travel fromaccount holder interactions on the Internet. In such a system, thepayment card network receives and combines the anticipated travel into atravel database.

While embodiments described herein are applied to a cross-bordercontext, it is understood by those familiar with the art that theconcepts, apparatus, system and methods described herein may also beapplicable to domestic travel that is far from an account holder's usualarea of residence.

In an alternate embodiment, a travel-rules based engine may be used inaddition to score-based fraud detector.

As described herein, the term “payment card” includes physical cards,such as credit cards, charge cards, and debit cards, but also includesany other devices that may hold payment account information, such asmobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), electronic wallets,and key fobs.

The systems and processes are not limited to the specific embodimentsdescribed herein. In addition, components of each system and eachprocess can be practiced independently and separately from othercomponents and processes described herein. Each component and processalso can be used in combination with other assembly packages andprocesses.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram 1000 illustrating a system to identify travelby payment account holders without utilizing account holder transactiondata. The present disclosure is related to a payment card paymentsystem, such as a credit card payment system using the MasterCard®interchange, Cirrus® network, or Maestro®. The MasterCard interchange isa proprietary communications standard promulgated by MasterCardInternational Incorporated for the exchange of financial transactiondata between financial institutions that are customers of MasterCardInternational Incorporated. Cirrus is a worldwide interbank networkoperated by MasterCard International Incorporated linking debit andpayment cards to a network of ATMs throughout the world. Maestro is amulti-national debit card service owned by MasterCard InternationalIncorporated.

In such system, account holders may use a mobile device 1100 a (such askey fobs, mobile phones, tablet computers, electronic wallets and thelike), or computers 1100 b to contact websites 1300 over a Wide AreaNetwork (WAN) such as the Internet 1200. It is understood that somemobile devices 1100 a may connect to the Internet 1200 via a mobiletelephony network 1250. Example websites 1300 (also referred to as “webservers”) include travel merchants 1300 a (such as travel agents,airlines, railways, cruise companies, and the like), travel searchengines 1300 b, and e-commerce vendors 1300 c. As part of theiroperation, websites 1300 may leave a small piece of data called a“cookie” stored on the mobile device 1100 a or computer 1100 bweb-browser while the account holder is browsing the website 1300.

When the computing device 1100 loads the website 1300, the browser sendsthe cookie back to the website 1300 informing a web server of the user'sprevious activity. Cookies were designed to be a reliable mechanism forwebsites to remember state information (such as items in a shoppingcart) or to record the user's browsing activity (including clickingparticular buttons, logging in, or recording which pages were previouslyvisited by the user).

Cookies may be used to track an account holder's web browsing. Whiletracking can also be done by using the IP address of the computer 1100requesting the page or the referrer field of the HTTP request header,cookies allow for greater precision.

A cookie monitor 1400 is a server that monitors the cookies of acomputing device 1100. In some embodiments, a reference to the cookiemonitor 1400 is embedded into the pages of the website 1300. In otherembodiments, the cookie monitor 1400 is the website 1300 itself. Whenthe account holder requests a page of a website 1300, but the requestcontains no cookie, the website 1300 presumes that this is the first webpage visited by the customer; the website 1300 creates a random stringand sends it as a cookie back to the browser together with the requestedpage. From this point on, the cookie will automatically be sent by thebrowser to the website 1300 every time a new page is requested.Partnering with the website 1300, the website 1300 sends the page asusual, but the cookie monitor 1400 also stores the URL of the requestedpage, the date/time of the request, and the cookie in a log file. Byanalyzing the log file collected in the process, cookie monitor 1400determines which pages the account holder has visited, in what sequence,and for how long.

The account holder computers may also connect to financial institutions1500 a-b and a payment network server 2000 over the Internet 1200.

A financial institution 1500 is a bank, credit union, or other financialinstitution known in the art. An issuer 1500 a is a financialinstitution that issues a payment card or an electronic account to aconsumer, who uses payment card or electronic account to tender paymentfor a purchase from a merchant or withdraw cash from an Automated TellerMachine. Payment cards are associated with a payment network 2000. Apayment network 2000 is an operational network that links merchants andfinancial institutions 1500, established to affect the transfer ofmonetary value between parties. An example payment network 2000 isMasterCard International Incorporated of Purchase, New York.

Embodiments will now be disclosed with reference to a block diagram ofan exemplary payment network server 2000 of FIG. 2 configured toidentify anticipated travel by payment account holders without utilizingaccount holder transaction data, constructed and operative in accordancewith an embodiment of the present disclosure.

Payment network server 2000 may run a multi-tasking operating system(OS) and include at least one processor or central processing unit (CPU)2100, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium 2200, and anetwork interface 2300.

Processor 2100 may be any central processing unit, microprocessor,micro-controller, computational device or circuit known in the art.

As shown in FIG. 2, processor 2100 is functionally comprised of a fraudscoring engine 2130, a travel predictor 2110, and a data processor 2120.

Data processor 2120 interfaces with storage medium 2200 and networkinterface 2300. The data processor 2120 enables processor 2100 to locatedata on, read data from, and writes data to, these components.

Fraud scoring engine 2130 is the structure that enables anti-fraudscoring or rules-based fraud-prevention of a financial transaction, andmay store its customer-related fraud scoring information in a cardholderdatabase 2210.

Travel predictor 2110 is the structure that anticipates future travel byaccount holders. Embodiments of travel predictor 2110 may monitor IPaddresses, map the known IP addresses of account holders, anticipatetravel by account holders, and cross-sell account holders travel relatedservices. In some embodiments, travel predictor 2110 may alsocommunicate with fraud scoring engine 2130 to factor travel by accountholders into fraud scoring. Travel predictor 2110 may further comprise:an IP address tracker 2111, travel monitor 2112, cardholder tracker2113, cross-sell engine 2114, cookie monitor API 2115, and financialinstitution API 2116

IP address tracker 2111 is any structure that tracks Internet Protocoladdresses, and may store its data in a user internet database 2220.

Travel monitor 2112 is configured to analyze cookies and InternetProtocol addresses to identify anticipated future travel, and may storeits determination in a travel database 2230. Travel database 2230 mayadditionally contain the Internet Protocol addresses or Uniform ResourceLocator (“URL”, also known as a “web address”) of known travel websites1300 a-c.

Cardholder tracker 2113 is configured to track and associate accountholders with Internet Protocol addresses, and may do so in coordinationwith a cardholder database 2210.

Cross-sell engine 2114 is a structure configured to take account holderanticipated travel determinations to provide useful information, such astargeted information and/or advertisements about the anticipated traveldestination. For example, cross-sell engine 2114 electronically notifyaccount holders about travel deals at the anticipated traveldestination, such as restaurants, hotels, rental cars, or any othergoods or services.

Cooke monitor API 2115 is the electronic protocols and interface thatallows travel predictor 2110 to communicate with a cookie monitor 1400via the network interface 2300.

Similarly, financial institution API 2116 is the electronic protocolsand interface that allows travel predictor 2110 to communicate with afinancial institution 1500 via the network interface 2300.

The functionality of these structures is elaborated in greater detail inFIG. 3.

These structures may be implemented as hardware, firmware, or softwareencoded on a computer readable medium, such as storage medium 2200.Further details of these components are described with their relation tomethod embodiments below.

Computer-readable storage medium 2200 may be a conventional read/writememory such as a magnetic disk drive, floppy disk drive, optical drive,compact-disk read-only-memory (CD-ROM) drive, digital versatile disk(DVD) drive, high definition digital versatile disk (HD-DVD) drive,Blu-ray disc drive, magneto-optical drive, optical drive, flash memory,memory stick, transistor-based memory, magnetic tape or othercomputer-readable memory device as is known in the art for storing andretrieving data. In some embodiments, computer-readable storage medium2200 may be remotely located from processor 2100, and be connected toprocessor 2100 via a network such as a local area network (LAN), a widearea network (WAN), or the Internet.

In addition, as shown in FIG. 2, storage medium 2200 may also contain acardholder database 2210, a user internet database 2220, and a traveldatabase 2230. It is understood by those familiar with the art that oneor more of these databases 2210-2230 may be combined in a myriad ofcombinations.

Network interface 2300 may be any data port as is known in the art forinterfacing, communicating or transferring data across a computernetwork, examples of such networks include Transmission ControlProtocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), Ethernet, Fiber Distributed DataInterface (FDDI), token bus, or token ring networks. Network interface2300 allows payment network server 2000 to communicate with computingdevices 1100, websites 1300, cookie monitor 1400, or financialinstitutions 1500.

We now turn our attention to method or process embodiments of thepresent disclosure, FIG. 3. It is understood by those known in the artthat instructions for such method embodiments may be stored on theirrespective computer-readable memory and executed by their respectiveprocessors. It is understood by those skilled in the art that otherequivalent implementations can exist without departing from the spiritor claims of the invention.

Embodiments create correlate Internet Protocol addresses with accountholders, and create an internet-search profile to anticipate accountholder travel to a destination.

We now turn our attention to methods illustrated in FIG. 3.

FIG. 3 illustrates a process 3000 in which anticipated travel isextracted from the Internet web surfing by account holders, constructedand operative in accordance with an embodiment of the presentdisclosure. It is understood by those familiar with the art that process3000 may be a non-real time clearing process, but in alternateembodiments may be a real time process. Conventionally, a clearingprocess is a non-real time process.

At block 3010, payment network 2000 receives cookie data of IP addressesfrom a cookie monitor 1400. The cookie data is received electronicallyvia the network interface 2300 and the cookie monitor API 2115, and maybe part of data from many transactions received via a batch process. Thecookie data includes the Internet Protocol address or URL of a computer1100 and the website 1300 visited. The website 1300 visited may includetravel sites such as airlines, hotels, travel search web sites, ortravel agencies.

The cookies are filtered by travel monitor 2112 to browsing related toknown travel websites 1300 a-c at block 3020. As mentioned above, theInternet Protocol address or web address of known travel websites may bestored in travel database 2230.

At block 3030, IP address tracker 2111 associates the IP address of thecomputer browser with an account holder or account holder account. Insome embodiments, the association may be made with an account. Theassociation can be accomplished by matching the IP address of the cookiewith the IP address of the account holder (account holder) stored inuser internet database 2220. Once the association is made, and theaccount holder is identified, the account holder accounts that arelikely to travel are identified, block 3040.

Account holder information may be retrieved from cardholder database2210 by cardholder tracker 2113 and used to determine whether there isan associated travel transaction at decision block 3050. An associatedtravel transaction may be the purchase of a plane or rail ticket, rentalcar reservation, cruise reservation, travel agency expense or otherfinancial transaction related to travel.

When there is an associated travel transaction, the travel predictor2110 informs the fraud-scoring engine 2130 to factor in the anticipatedtravel into the future fraud scoring, block 3060. Additionally, in someembodiments, the issuer 1500 a is informed of the anticipated travel viathe financial institution API 2116 and network interface 2300.

Once the anticipated travel is factored into the fraud scoring, theaccount holder is targeted with travel related messages by cross-sellengine 2114 at block 3070. The travel related messages may take avariety of forms including mailings via the postal service or electronicmessages such as electronic mail, text messages, or notifications via anapplication running on computer 1100. The travel related messages mayinclude weather reports for the anticipated travel location,advertisements or promotions from travel-related merchants or vendors,advertisements or promotions from travel locations and the like. In someembodiments, the travel related message may remind the account holder touse their payment card while traveling. Messages may also remind accountholders of any payment card usage requirements or ask the account holderto let the issuer financial institution know the travel destination toimprove fraud monitoring and any offers. The travel related messages mayvary depending upon whether a travel-related transaction has occurred.

If, at block 3050, there is no associated travel transaction, there isno need to factor the anticipated travel into the future fraud scoringand so the process proceeds directly to block 3070.

If the financial institution has not seen a transaction come through,although the account holder has visited many travel sites, it ispossible that the account holder paid with a payment card issued by acompetitor. The reminder can therefore be used to: 1) remind the accountholder to use a specific payment card; or 2) use the payment card whiletraveling and pay for the trip if the trip is not yet purchased.

It is understood by those familiar with the art that the systemdescribed herein may be implemented in hardware, firmware, or softwareencoded on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium.

The previous description of the embodiments is provided to enable anyperson skilled in the art to practice the disclosure. The variousmodifications to these embodiments will be readily apparent to thoseskilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may beapplied to other embodiments without the use of inventive faculty. Thus,the present disclosure is not intended to be limited to the embodimentsshown herein, but is to be accorded the widest scope consistent with theprinciples and novel features disclosed herein.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of anticipating future travel, themethod comprising: identifying a travel-related cookie from a pluralityof cookies with a processor, when a web site address of thetravel-related cookie is associated with a travel web site, each cookieof the plurality of cookies containing: an Internet Protocol addressassociated with a browsing computer and the web site address;identifying, with the processor, a customer account associated with thetravel-related cookie by comparing the Internet Protocol address of thebrowsing computer with a database of known customer Internet Protocoladdresses, the database being stored on a non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium, the customer account containingcontact information of the customer; using the contact information tosend the customer a travel-related notification via a network interface.2. The method of claim 1, wherein the travel web site is an airline,hotel, travel search web site, or travel agency.
 3. The method of claim2, further comprising: determining, with the processor, an associatedtravel transaction using the customer account.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the associated travel transaction is a purchase of a planeticket, purchase of a rail ticket, rental car reservation, or cruisereservation.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the customer accountfurther contains a Primary Account Number or checking account number. 6.The method of claim 5, further comprising: factoring the associatedtravel transaction into future fraud scoring with the processor.
 7. Themethod of claim 6, wherein the travel-related notification is via anelectronic mail notification, a text message, or an application runningon the browsing computer.
 8. A system of anticipating future travel, thesystem comprising: a processor configured to identify a travel-relatedcookie from a plurality of cookies with a processor, when a web siteaddress of the travel-related cookie is associated with a travel website, each cookie of the plurality of cookies containing: an InternetProtocol address associated with a browsing computer and the web siteaddress, the processor further configured to identify a customer accountassociated with the travel-related cookie by comparing the InternetProtocol address of the browsing computer with a database of knowncustomer Internet Protocol addresses, the database being stored on anon-transitory computer-readable storage medium, the customer accountcontaining contact information of the customer; and a network interfaceis configured to use the contact information to send the customer atravel-related notification.
 9. The system of claim 8, wherein thetravel web site is an airline, hotel, travel search web site, or travelagency.
 10. The system of claim 9, wherein the processor is furtherconfigured to determine an associated travel transaction using thecustomer account.
 11. The system of claim 10, wherein the associatedtravel transaction is a purchase of a plane ticket, purchase of a railticket, rental car reservation, or cruise reservation.
 12. The system ofclaim 11, wherein customer account further contains a Primary AccountNumber or checking account number.
 13. The system of claim 12, furthercomprising: factoring the associated travel transaction into futurefraud scoring with the processor.
 14. The system of claim 13, whereinthe travel-related notification is via an electronic mail notification,a text message, or an application running on the browsing computer. 15.A non-transitory computer readable medium encoded with data andinstructions, when executed by a computing device the instructionscausing the computing device to: identify a travel-related cookie from aplurality of cookies with a processor, when a web site address of thetravel-related cookie is associated with a travel web site, each cookieof the plurality of cookies containing: an Internet Protocol addressassociated with a browsing computer and the web site address; identify,with the processor, a customer account associated with thetravel-related cookie by comparing the Internet Protocol address of thebrowsing computer with a database of known customer Internet Protocoladdresses, the database being stored on a non-transitorycomputer-readable storage medium, the customer account containingcontact information of the customer; use the contact information to sendthe customer a travel-related notification via a network interface. 16.The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 15, whereinthe travel web site is an airline, hotel, travel search web site, ortravel agency.
 17. The non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumof claim 16, wherein the processor is further configured to: determinean associated travel transaction using the customer account.
 18. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 17, wherein theassociated travel transaction is a purchase of a plane ticket, purchaseof a rail ticket, rental car reservation, or cruise reservation.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein thecustomer account further contains a Primary Account Number or checkingaccount number.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage mediumof claim 15, further comprising: factoring the associated traveltransaction into future fraud scoring with the processor.